I am setting myself up for a good old-fashioned “whupping”, but I can’t contain my annoyance any longer. I speak of the, what seem to be, dozens of various election related threads that are littering the boards. Religion, politics and sex are the three subjects that, in general conversation, tend to arouse some of the strongest emotions. It’s not as if I don’t realize we’re tossing around some highly charged ideas. Nor am I unmindful of the frustration and disappointment that people on both sides of the issue are feeling after a month of legal battles and uncertainties. But what I can do without, what I wish we could all do without, is the depressing emergence of self-righteous venom that seems to leak into every single fucking discussion any more. I don’t care how strongly you feel about your side of the issue, the simple fact that someone has the temerity to disagree with you does not, in an of itself, give evidence to your pet theory that anyone who doesn’t agree with you is a sloped brow, drooling mouth-breather who can barely count to five without using fingers. Intelligent people can disagree. Deal with it.
I am very conscious of the fact that I’ve only been around for a few months, and don’t know most of the people here very well at all. But I still find myself disappointed. Perhaps I have no right to be, knowing how strongly people feel about this subject. However, I would have hoped that people on both sides of the issues were a little more interested in discussing and debating the issues in some sort of rational manner than indulging in a round of foam at the mouth vituperative bashing of the candidates and their supporters.
I don’t mean to make the same sorts of sweeping generalizations that I see many of the election discussion contain. Not everyone who contributes to these threads are indulging in the same sort of inane and juvenile insults which annoy me so much, there is a great deal of good information, well thought out debate and intelligent discussion. I’ve learned a great deal about election law, a subject I thought I had a fairly good grip on prior to this debacle. But at the same time, it seems that I can’t read a thread that hasn’t been polluted, at one time or another, by a preponderance of partisan bullshit that bears little or no relation to the subjects at hand. There are certain threads that I don’t even bother opening, because they’re nothing more than people bitching about how “Gore stole …” or “Bush is too dumb too…” If that’s what entertains you, fine. But quit pretending they have anything to do with finding the truth (in whatever guise it might be masquerading at the moment).
I happen to be a registered Democrat who wanted to vote for Senator McCain. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it, which caused me to become a tepid supporter of Vice President Gore. My support, being so unenthusiastic at the beginning, has done nothing but shrink in the month since the election. I completely understand why he has tried every legal avenue in order to get the questionable votes counted. As a theoretical point, I agree with his position. However, in my personal opinion, he should have conceded at some point along this roller coaster from Hell. Nor do I mean to imply that I find all of his actions, or the actions of the Democratic party and its supporters to be admirable and above reproach. The attempts to disregard the absentee ballots are redolent of hypocrisy of the highest order. To turn around and exclude ballots for “irregularities” while attempting to get other “irregular” ballots takes an ability to lie with a straight face that only professional poker players and politicians share. Of course, given that the Republicans seem to be doing the exact same thing with respect to keeping out some of the disputed ballots while attempting to ensure the absentee ballots are counted, I’d say there’s plenty of hypocrisy to go around. There are plenty of examples, from both sides that illustrate that everyone has engaged in behavior that people are going to find questionable. Reacting to the situation with the self-righteous admonition that your side’s position and actions are unsullied by the taint of self-interest is laughable and does nothing but marginalize you and your positions to the realm of comedic relief.
When this entire episode began to unfold, I thought it was wonderful. Having registered as a poster here only a few a couple of months prior, I looked forward tot he opportunity to see reasoned and intelligent debate and discussion as the whole thing played out. There was some of that, particularly early in the dispute, but as it’s dragged on, the ugliness has become more and more a fixture in almost every discussion.
And, in a larger way, I thought it was going to be a wonderful opportunity to show that the American political system, for all its flaws, was so strong and stable that it was capable of withstanding this sort of confusion. I still believe that it is. But I didn’t count upon the reaction of the partisan supporters. I thought that intelligent people were capable of realizing that other people could honestly and rationally disagree without subjecting them to questions about their intelligence, their honesty or their parentage. Silly fucking me. What was I thinking?